Polish Nazi Victims, Many Over 90, Press Germany for Support as Reparations Stall

On November 5, Polish victims' organizations posted an open letter on the website of the Foundation for Polish–German Reconciliation. It carried a blunt message: they can no longer wait. The letter was published in German, Polish and English, and it was addressed not to the German government but to German civil society.

The signatories say about 50,000 survivors of Nazi persecution during the German occupation still live in Poland. They include former concentration camp and prison inmates, people deported to Germany for forced labor, and others who suffered other forms of Nazi repression. Many are over 90, struggling with illness and rising costs, and need help with daily life. For many of them, the letter warned, any further delay means help will arrive too late. It asked businesses, foundations, associations and private citizens for humanitarian support, and said every donation matters.

Germany has acknowledged its moral responsibility toward the remaining survivors, the signatories noted, but the federal government has not decided on any reparations. Josef Hinterseher, deputy spokesperson for the Federal Foreign Office, told reporters on September 23 that there is currently no decision on a humanitarian gesture and that the draft budget for 2027 reflects that. A final declaration after the German-Polish government consultations in December 2025 had only promised to analyze possibilities for additional support for Polish victims.

The question has weighed on German-Polish relations for decades. After 1989 and German reunification, Berlin provided 500 million deutschmarks to Holocaust victims in Poland, and more than a million people received support. Former forced laborers also received payments from the EVZ Foundation. Large parts of Polish society regard this as insufficient given the scale of the crimes. An estimated 6 million Polish citizens were killed in the war, about 3 million of them Polish Jews. The "General Plan East" envisioned displacing, enslaving or murdering much of the population, the 1939 "Intelligenzaktion" targeted teachers, clergy, civil servants and intellectuals, and about 2.5 million Poles were deported to the Reich for forced labor.

The Law and Justice party made reparations central to its policy toward Berlin after taking power in 2015. In October 2022 its government formally demanded 6.2 trillion zloty, about €1.3 trillion, its estimate of Poland's war losses. Donald Tusk's center-left government, in office since the December 2023 election, has distanced itself from that figure. Foreign Minister Radek Sikorski has said Poland nonetheless expects a "creative solution" from Germany. Before his summer 2024 visit to Poland, then-Chancellor Olaf Scholz offered €200 million; Tusk rejected it as insufficient, and talks since have produced nothing.

In Germany's opposition, the Greens are still pushing. Co-chair Franziska Brantner told DW in Warsaw on Thursday that her parliamentary group asked the budget committee to fund the gesture, and the request was rejected. "Hope dies last," she said, adding that the group will do all it can to get the coalition to change course. She sees the committee's final review session, held this week, as the last chance.

Public opinion in Poland remains firm. In the latest German-Polish Barometer, a representative survey conducted for 25 years, 53% of respondents said German society does not sufficiently acknowledge Polish suffering, while only 18% thought Germans have done enough.

Meanwhile, private giving has begun. After an initial appeal in May, addressed to the federal government, several hundred Germans donated between €50 and several hundred euros. More than €35,000 has reached the foundation's account, and several people in need have already received one-time assistance. Foundation chairman Jakub Deka called it a drop in the bucket, but said every bit helps, and hopes the new appeal will mobilize more people.

Deka also recalled Jerzy Tarasiewicz, longtime head of the victims' association in Gdansk. Born in 1942 on a German farm where his parents were forced laborers, he told Gazeta Wyborcza in January, "They are waiting for us to die." He died in late September, aged 84, before any gesture came. Deka called it a painful reminder that the victims cannot wait. The budget committee's final session this week will show whether any funding is added.